SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shriro Holdings Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shriro Holdings Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shriro Holdings Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shriro Holdings Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shriro Holdings Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shriro Holdings Ltd operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Shriro Holdings Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shriro Holdings Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shriro Holdings Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Photography sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shriro Holdings Ltd
Strengths of Shriro Holdings Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shriro Holdings Ltd are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Shriro Holdings Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Photography industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Shriro Holdings Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Photography industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Shriro Holdings Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Shriro Holdings Ltd in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Shriro Holdings Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Shriro Holdings Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Shriro Holdings Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Shriro Holdings Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Shriro Holdings Ltd is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Shriro Holdings Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Shriro Holdings Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Shriro Holdings Ltd is one of the leading players in the Photography industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Shriro Holdings Ltd are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Shriro Holdings Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shriro Holdings Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Shriro Holdings Ltd is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Photography industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Innovation driven organization
– Shriro Holdings Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Photography sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Photography industry
– Shriro Holdings Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Shriro Holdings Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Photography industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Shriro Holdings Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Shriro Holdings Ltd in Photography industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Shriro Holdings Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shriro Holdings Ltd are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Shriro Holdings Ltd has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Shriro Holdings Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Photography industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Shriro Holdings Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Shriro Holdings Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Shriro Holdings Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Shriro Holdings Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Photography industry over the last five years. Shriro Holdings Ltd even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Shriro Holdings Ltd is one of the leading players in the Photography industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Photography industry in last five years.
High dependence on Shriro Holdings Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Shriro Holdings Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Photography industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Shriro Holdings Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Shriro Holdings Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Shriro Holdings Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Photography industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Shriro Holdings Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Shriro Holdings Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Shriro Holdings Ltd is just above the Photography industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Need for greater diversity
– Shriro Holdings Ltd has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Photography industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Shriro Holdings Ltd is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Photography industry.
Shriro Holdings Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shriro Holdings Ltd are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Shriro Holdings Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Shriro Holdings Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Photography industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shriro Holdings Ltd to increase its market reach. Shriro Holdings Ltd will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Shriro Holdings Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Shriro Holdings Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Photography industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Shriro Holdings Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Shriro Holdings Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Photography industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Shriro Holdings Ltd to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Shriro Holdings Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Photography sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Shriro Holdings Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Shriro Holdings Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Shriro Holdings Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Photography sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shriro Holdings Ltd can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Photography industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Shriro Holdings Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Shriro Holdings Ltd can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Shriro Holdings Ltd can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Photography industry.
Threats Shriro Holdings Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shriro Holdings Ltd are -
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Shriro Holdings Ltd in the Photography sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Shriro Holdings Ltd will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shriro Holdings Ltd can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Shriro Holdings Ltd prominent markets.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Shriro Holdings Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Photography industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shriro Holdings Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Photography sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Environmental challenges
– Shriro Holdings Ltd needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Shriro Holdings Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Photography industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Photography industry are lowering. It can presents Shriro Holdings Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Photography sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Shriro Holdings Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Photography sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Shriro Holdings Ltd can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Photography industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shriro Holdings Ltd demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Photography industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Shriro Holdings Ltd is facing in Photography sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Shriro Holdings Ltd needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Photography industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shriro Holdings Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shriro Holdings Ltd needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Shriro Holdings Ltd is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Shriro Holdings Ltd is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Shriro Holdings Ltd to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Shriro Holdings Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.